Both bees and Hummingbirds are nectar-consuming creatures and thus it’s quite obvious that even though you might set up feeders and have intentions to just attract any one of these two species.
You might easily end up attracting both of them due to the similarities in their attraction patterns.
Hence, it’s vital for you to know how exactly you can keep the bees away if the feeders in your garden are meant to attract just Hummingbirds.
Here's My Bee Story
In my case, when suddenly coming across a few articles, I developed this interest to attract Hummingbirds into my garden and hence did set up some Hummingbird feeders.
But when I started to work towards my goal of attracting more Hummingbirds into my flower garden strategically through the feeders, I could attract them.
But also had to witness an inflow of bees into my garden too which even though was aesthetically pleasing, ruined the balance and planning I had, and definitely was a problem.
That is when I tried to search for ways how to keep bees away from hummingbird feeders for an uninterrupted time with these splendid birds and their unique symbolism.
On detailed research, I discovered the following few ways of keeping bees away from the Hummingbird feeders in my garden that you too may take help from if you are facing the same problem as I did.
How I Keep Bees Away From Hummingbird Feeders
Method 1: Bee Guards Can Work
The main step to attracting Hummingbirds into your backyard is to place specialized feeders for them all around your garden.
But, just like these feeders full of nectar will attract Hummingbirds, similarly, they’ll most likely attract bees, feeding on the nectar served for Hummingbirds.
This is an extremely common issue and hence the solution is also available to a great extent.
Either you can start by buying a bee-proof Hummingbird feeder available on the market, or simply try to DIY your own ones.
All you have to do is cover your Hummingbird feeder with a mesh-like substance with narrow holes in it which are impossible to penetrate through by bees but enough to allow the narrow and sleep beaks and tongues of Hummingbirds.
This way, even though bees might be attracted to your feeders, they won’t be able to feed on them anyway and hence leave your Hummingbirds and the nectar alone.
Method 2: Red Color Saucer Feeders Are A Good Idea
If you all already are not familiar with it, before you go ahead with your Hummingbird venture, you should know the colors these birds are more attracted to and also the color their feeding opponents are attracted to.
This will help you bring the right crowd to your garden and significantly avoid the wrong crowd.
Red is that color that has a visual par over other colors for Hummingbirds, but yellow is the color of bees. Hence, you must use the color red more and yellow less in your garden.
Also, saucer feeders are the most ideal ones available because these are basically built of a shape wherein the nectar is placed away from the opening.
Hence, bees can’t reach it but Hummingbirds easily can through their long beaks.
Method 3: Keep Changing Places Of Your Feeder
This is a quite obvious yet less talked about solution to keep bees away from hummingbird feeders in your garden.
However, this process has to be more strategic than some random shuffling, because you just want to confuse the bees but not the Hummingbirds.
You can move the feeders only a few feet apart which allows the dynamic hummingbirds to find them easily but make it way too cumbersome for bees.
Also, the interval at which you change the positions shouldn’t be too frequent, which makes the Hummingbirds confused as well.
You need to have that right balance that encourages Hummingbirds but discourages the bees.
Method 4: Decoy Feeders Are Always An Attractive Solution
Obviously, you are here for the Hummingbirds but not the bees, but, if the situation gets way too out of your hand and you genuinely feel that no other way is truly working.
And you might just have to lose all the Hummingbirds trying to get into your garden to these swarming bees, it’s time you think of a feeder for the bees too.
This is a genuine way by which you can keep the bees away from the Hummingbird feeders as they now have their own decoy feeder and thus no reason to irritate the Hummingbirds and their feeding sessions.
Method 5: Put A Check On The Leakage
Well, even if you are using a saucer feeder for the Hummingbirds, you might keep attracting bees into your garden.
How? Because of the probable leakage of your feeder, which is definitely not as unusual as it may sound, this is the main reason why you keep attracting other insects to your feeder even if it apparently isn’t feasible for them.
Hence, you must check it from time to time and reinforce the seals using plumber tapes.
However, remember to keep the tape out of contact with the nectar because the glue infusion into the nectar might create health hazards for the Hummingbirds.
Method 6: Nectar Is Not So Sweet
Even though both the Hummingbirds and bees apparently feed on the same nectar, there is a significant difference between what basically attracts these two towards nectar.
Wherein Hummingbirds are just nectar-feeding creatures, bees are more of “sugar in nectar” feeding creatures.
They are here for the high concentrations of sugar in nectar and hence, if the nectar isn’t as sweet as it naturally is, bees won’t find it good enough.
The ideal insect-appropriate ratio of nectar to water is 1:3, but if you want to make it absolutely unattractive for the bees, make 1:5. With extremely low sugar content, bees will automatically lose interest in your garden.
Method 7: Use Any Color But Yellow
As mentioned earlier as well, bees are inclined to the color yellow, and hence you have to at all costs avoid using this color in your garden, like feeders or even flowers.
If you already have something yellow in your garden, it’s better you repaint them to preferably red to work well for Hummingbirds instead.
Method 8: How About A Pollinator Garden?
Bees definitely do feed on nectars, but something even significant that bees are active participants in is pollination.
A large chunk of flowers and crops that we consume are driven by the process of pollination wherein bees have a huge role to play.
Hence, if you can cultivate a separate irresistible flower garden for the bees that both satisfies their visual and feeding requirements, along with the room to allow them to participate in pollination.
The bees are most likely to leave your red Hummingbird feeders alone and go for what suits them better.
And if you perfectly use the above-mentioned tricks, you might soon be successful to get rid of the buzzing bees around your Hummingbird feeder, leaving all that nectar for the Hummingbirds only!
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